Bachelor of Commerce and Eco?
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New Member

Hi eveeyone, I'm new to the forum but have been flicking through a bunch of posts. I've noticed quite a few people mention that doing a double degree of commerce and eco is useless, but I don't really understand why.
Being an economist interests me, what exactly about it makes it 'pointless'

Also do you guys have any advice of majors? I'm lost because there are so many that interest me, but which do you reckon would be beneficial/recommend

Well-Known Member

I don't see why not. Although I'd say it depends on what kind of "economist" you mean. An academic economist? Then no, that combination won't help you. You'd be better off with combining an economics major with maths or statistics or something. A working economist (e.g. for banks, government institutions)? Then sure. Maybe a finance or banking major from commerce would help a little. But that's about it. An economics major is definitely not a "commerce" subject area, though.

I think the "pointlessness" of an economist is due to

the lack of precision in economic forecasting,

economics theories and models often depend too much on unrealistic assumptions to be anything ressembling reality (the free market model is a good example of this), and

there aren't many economist jobs out there; demand outstrips supply like crazy. Take the RBA for example; every year, they receive over 4,000 applications for their graduate program, yet they accept only around 30-40. Where do the rest of the applicants go?

Anyway, if you're really interested in economics, then definitely go for it. But make sure you choose a second major carefully so (a) it complements your economics studies in a way, and (b) if it comes down to it, you can land a job with that major. I personally recommend financial mathematics or statistics.

Junior Member

Rather than repeat the above which is very well said, I would add that keep in mind uni economics is very different to HSC economics. I originally wanted to do Comm Eco but I’m glad I didn’t because I realised how quantitative it was in uni (ie numbers based). Unlike the HSC where it’s a lot of theories and definitions with some headline statistics thrown in, at university level its far deeper and requires a good bit of mathematics too (at least from when I did the core economics subjects for my commerce degree).